The storms of yesterday died off a bit today- it’s still been windy and rainy, but nowhere near as bad. Mid morning, I drove down the E10 to the very end- a village called Å. This is as far west as you can go by road, although it’s not the end of Lofoten, the islands continue a little further.

20mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO100 Village sign for Å, the furthest west you can go on the E10 highway

Here’s the little UP! parked up at the very end of the road for posterity.

17mm, f/8, 1/80 sec, ISO100 The little VW UP! at the end of the E10

Å is pretty small, but does contain a couple of museums. I went to the Fishing Village Museum- basically a few of the old buildings in the centre of the village have been preserved as they were, and you can wander around and take a look. I visited this as it was actually open (everything else seems to have closed at the end of August, including restaurants!), but I was still the only person there. You can see why stuff closes at the end of summer I guess.

After buying my ticket in the village store, and getting my StickerOfAuthorisationToWalkAbout(tm) I did a little tour. There’s an old post office, a fishermans’ house, a boat shed, blacksmith, bakery and more. All over the place are dead drying cod, which look a bit creepy, but it must be worse in the spring when they’re just hanging *everywhere* – anyway, some pictures from the museum:

0mm, f/0, 1/40 sec, ISO2000 Boats at the fishing museum in Å

0mm, f/0, 1/60 sec, ISO100 Dried fish head hanging outside a building at the fishing museum

0mm, f/0, 1/60 sec, ISO800 Old sacks in the post office of the fishing museum in Å

0mm, f/0, 1/60 sec, ISO800 Desk in the old post office at the fishing museum, Å.

Also while I was walking around, I spotted this nice old Saab although I don’t think much of the colour match on that door.

After this, I headed back to Reine. On the way, the coast road passes over a bridge where the water enters a fjord, which made for a nice scene:

16mm, f/8, 1/25 sec, ISO100 Dupfjorden, viewed from the bridge on the main road.

Back in Reine, I sheltered in the cafe some more while another rainstorm passed through. I then had a little look around the harbour side of the village behind where I’m staying. The little lighthouse on the end of the harbour wall looked rather fetching:

There’s also the wooden racks used for drying cod – these are everywhere, it must be very fishy smelling when they’re in use. A video at the museum explained the cod are caught in the winter months, and then hung up to dry through until late spring. The climate here is just right so they dry out without going off. This preserves them, and then when cooked the rest of the year, they’re re-hydrated.